Sunday, October 3, 2010

Feasting in Hospitals, and Feasting With a Notebook.

It seems with almost every major event or occasion we have a feast.There is the ever famous Thanksgiving feast, a Christmas feast, an Easter Feast, a birthday feast, a graduation feast, feasts to celebrate gatherings of friends and family.The list is endless, we even sometimes have the feast in and of itself be the event.

Some feasts are a true banquet, with time and effort put into preparing the food.Other feasts are more spur of the moment; victuals picked up at a nearby corner store. This is the kind which requires very little to no preparation, built on a foundation of candy bars and potato chips.Some feasts leave us with a feeling of satisfaction and fulfillment; others with a feeling of sickness and regret.

My favorite feasts are always those with family and friends in abundance.My favorite food to have is fondue.I remember we were planning one such feast when one of my Mom’s sisters was coming for a visit while I was undergoing chemo-therapy treatments.Unfortunately, a day or two they came to visit a bacteria was detected in my blood work.I was recalled to the hospital for monitoring until I could go seven days without a growth from my blood.

This was most disappointing as I did not feel sick, but still had full energy for what I was going through.I remember talking with my Mom at the hospital, asking her about the possibility of having the fondue down at the hospital.My Mom agreed to bring everything down and have the feast at the hospital, as long as the nurses agreed to allow us to do that.In hindsight, I do not think the head nurse had any idea how well our family can do fondue, or possibly what it is.The nurses agreed, and to my Mom’s utter amazement, she had agreed to the enormous task of helping orchestrate fondue in the family room of a hospital.I am truly blessed with amazing parents!The feast we had at that time is something which I think I will never forget.I also remember the surprise of my young men’s leader, Brother Macoubrie, when he came to visit.He had been misinformed I was in the ICU, and came to find me feasting with my family.

This weekend we had a truly unique feast, a feast of “that meat which endureth unto everlasting life.”While the feasts of meat which perish and need replenishing are memorable, it is the feasts of the Words of Eternal Life such as we were able to hear this weekend which have the greatest impact.I loved Elder Holland’s testimony on the things he was grateful for, Sister Wixom’scouncil on teaching our children, Elder Costa’s warning on following the prophet, which was later repeated by Elder Duncan, Elder McConkie’s advice to find revelation, Elder Christoffersons’s words on consecrating ourselves to God, the analogies of Elder Uchdorf, and I am still on the first session! I know these are the words of Salvation, those Words which as we eat of them will never die, but bring us home to our Heavenly Father.I hope you will take the time to listen to their words if you have not.You can watch it here; “General Conference.”